LETTERS: Pulling plug on needed program

The closure of the Peace Arch Hospital hydrotherapy pool is devastating news to arthritis sufferers in our area.

After complex hip surgery left me with limited mobility, I was delighted to find a program that helped to strengthen my remaining muscle, improve my balance and provide vigorous exercise impossible out of the pool. I took classes twice a week and found them enormously beneficial. All the other participants in my classes felt the same about this unique program.

In October, an official at Fraser Health told me the closure of the pool was due to the high cost of needed repairs. Surely proven patient benefit should trump costs! Now we are told that there is a “conflict of interest” with the expert therapist who has run the program for the past four years; strange that this situation should suddenly come to light.

For the sake of the hundreds of patients who have found the program beneficial over the 30 years of the pool’s existence, and for the hundreds more in our area who will have hip and knee surgery in the years to come, the warm water therapy program must be reinstated.

Elizabeth Bordeaux, Surrey

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Instead of Fraser Health apologizing for any inconvenience the closure has cause to the individuals suffering from brain injuries, strokes, joint replacements, painful arthritis, etc. they should be apologizing for not helping them get their lives back!

Can repairing the only 30-year-old institutional standard build pool be that complicated and expensive? What significant repair is needed? I know of many pools that are far older and they are still working well.

Heck, you can build a new pool for under $100,000, and this pool is tiny. So what is the problem here?

The woman I take care of, who is only 50, suffered a severe stroke five years ago and has had a difficult recovery. We discovered the pool two years ago after we heard about it from the stroke club, and she has made huge strides in getting out of her wheelchair and actually walking. She is standing more erect and her leg and foot are moving. Her inactive arm was the next phase of her work at the pool, but we didn’t get that far.

It’s affordable, effective and soothing, and run by two wonderful recreational therapists, who are young seniors advocating ageless fitness.

We don’t want to hear about the bureaucratic BS – excuse my language – we just want the damn pool back.